Setty says when Google first formed the People Analytics team about seven years ago, its objective was to make sure the company's people decisions were based on data and analytics. It took that goal very literally.

Promotions are a big deal at Google, he explained. Twice a year, the company brings together its senior-most engineers from all over the world to form committees and mull over the huge stacks of engineering promotion nominations filed. In each cycle, thousands of Googlers get promoted to positions of higher responsibility. The whole process takes several days.

Because the People Analytics team wanted to help its "engineering brothers and sisters make these decisions more efficiently," they came up with a decision making model to decide which employees should get promoted:

People Analytics shouldn't be trying to make algorithms to replace people, Setty realized. Instead, it should be all about arming its executives with better, more relevant information so they were capable of making better decisions.

Google's promotion, hiring, and on-boarding processes all still rely on information rooted in research, but they no longer entertain the idea of letting algorithms replace people.